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Friday, August 9, 2013

All About Middle Grade Interview: Nikki Bennett (Author of Four Fiends)

This week I am very excited to welcome Nikki Bennett, author of Four Fiends, to the blog to discuss her book and answer some of my random questions (you know I sometimes come up with strange questions). I hope that y'all will give her a very warm welcome.

About the Author:

Nikki Bennett is an author and world traveler currently living in Japan. She loves traveling, and incorporates all the culture and folklore she can from the countries she visits into her stories.

Nikki has two books out right now. Her first book, FOUR FIENDS is a MG fantasy adventure and her newest book, MUKADE ISLAND is a YA adventure/fantasy (think Lord of the Flies meets LOST, it it was set on a different world!)

1.Nikki, could you tell us a little about each of the four kids
kidnapped by the Golden Dragon and tasked with finding the missing
Guardians?

The four kids are very
different. Pietro is from Italy and is
kind of feisty and full of himself. He
likes to tell tall tales. Kate is from
America. She’s very pretty and always
thinks she’s right, but she’s lonely too.
Saburo, from Japan, walks with a limp and gets teased a lot. He is troubled and angry, not very sure of
himself, but has a kind, quiet spirit.
And Jinjing is from Hong Kong.
She is shy, awkward, and never seems to fit in, but by the end, she
realizes she has the potential to become a leader, if she overcomes her fears.

2.Books with quest that send the charcters in to uncharted territory
is always interesting. Would mind sharing with us a little bit about the where
Jinjing and them will be travelling through?

3.The kids travel through
different countries as they chase down the Four Fiends, but they travel through
different times as well. They find
themselves in New Jersey during the Civil War, ancient China, a remote
Polynesian island, and Greece in the time of the Gods, when the first human was
just being created. The reader also gets
to explore modern day Japan, Italy and Hong Kong.

4.I love that seeing an ordinary thing was the spark behind the idea
for Four Fiends. Could you share with us how your visit to Hong Kong
inspired Four Fiends?

There’s this cool escalator in Hong Kong that
takes you up the steep streets. It’s
over a kilometer long, and is billed as the longest escalator in the
world. When we visited Hong Kong a few
years ago, we rode it to the top, got off, wandered around, and ended up in
this botanical park. In the park, we
came across this huge storm water drain—all paved with brick that made it look
like a Gothic arch—and I just began dreaming of things that might live up that
drain. The Four Fiends story began
there, and in the first chapter, Jinjing discovers the drain and finds
something wonderful in it.

5.As one who would love to travel the world, I am so jealous that you
are currently living in Japan. What do you enjoy most about living in Japan?

Everything!
The people are amazing, the food is great, but what I like most is
exploring the historical places—all the temples and castles and shrines. There are so many stories to be discovered
here, every time I visit a new place I want to write a story about it!

6.

Since you like to travel, Nikki, could you tell us what has been
your favorite place to visit in the last three years? What was so enjoyable
about that place?

The Kingdom of Bhutan, in the Himalayas. It was a magical place. Besides having cars and cell phones, there is
hardly any modernization there at all.
Almost nothing from the outside world—no McDonalds or Starbucks, no
chain stores of any kind. The hotels
didn’t even have elevators—apparently when an elevator or escalator gets
installed anywhere in that country, people come from all over to see it because
it’s so unusual. The people in that
country were amazing and the monasteries and castles were just magical.

7.what were the last three books you read and loved?

Since I have an indie book review blog, I’ve
been reading a ton of indie books and haven’t had time for anything else. A couple of these books really stand out in
my mind—Penumbra, a YA fantasy by Samantha Bennett, Glimpse, by
Steven Whibley and I Wish I May, by David Stahler, Jr. (the last two
both middle grade.) The last book I
think I read that was mainstream was Life of Pi, which I also loved.

8.Weirdest thing you ate while travelling?

I am such a wuss when it comes to trying new
food. It has taken me forever to get
used to raw fish, and I still only like the salmon sushi, the other fish I
haven’t been able to stomach yet. Let’s
see…weirdest thing I guess would be jellyfish, that was in San Francisco’s
Chinatown. And although I guess it isn’t
too unusual, the goat bulgogi we found at this roadside shack in South Korea
was pretty awesome. In Japan, the
weirdest thing I’ve eaten is a soup with teeny-tiny live fish still swimming
around in it.

9.The world has fallen to a robot invasion and only one heroine/hero
can possibly save the day, who do you choose?

Oh
geez…can I just wuss out and say Harry Potter?
Helped out by Gandalf?

9. Care to tell us about your writing cave (include picture if you
want)?

My tatami room—the traditional room in a
Japanese house with straw mats and paper screens (although our screens aren’t
paper, they’re glass.) I sit at our
Japanese kotatsu table to write. But,
since I work on a laptop, so sometimes I end up in a couch in front of the TV
too, and right now I’m writing the answers to this interview in bed because I’m
too lazy to get out of it.

10. Any upcoming projects
that you can sure with us?

I have one other book, MUKADE ISLAND, that was published in
July by Firedrake Books, it is a YA adventure/fantasy set on a deserted
island. Projects I’m currently working
on: FROM THE MAGICAL MIND OF MINDY MUNSEN is a middle grade book about four
kids who move to a house teeming with weird spirits. I’ve just finished the rough draft for a fun
middle grade book about ninjas (after we visited the Ninja Village and went to
Ninja Training School near Kyoto last month, I had to write something about all
the cool ninja things we did!) and I’m working on the sequel to MUKADE ISLAND. I’m also going to have a sequel to FOUR
FIENDS, but that’s still in development stages, although I know the kids will
be traveling to Bhutan in it.

I’ve got a new website called World of Nikki (www.worldofnikki.com) where you can
check out all my latest projects!

Thanks so much for stopping by, Nikki, and for answering all of my questions. Your answers about travelling have made me want to start travelling even more than before.

Four Fiends by Nikki Bennett, January 23, 2013.

Jinjing, a socially awkward, insecure and fearful girl living in Hong Kong, is about as far from a brave hero as you can get. But when a legendary golden dragon pulls Jinjing and three other kids—dishonest Pietro from Italy, moody Saburo from Japan and overconfident Kate from America--into another dimension, Jinjing discovers courage and strength she never knew she possessed.

A group of horrible monsters—the Four Fiends—have kidnapped the Earth’s Guardians. These ancient creatures protect the world from harm, and while they’re missing, life on Earth will spiral into chaos. The Golden Dragon tasks Jinjing and her new friends to find the Fiends and rescue the Guardians.

Now, Jinjing must unlock the courage hidden deep inside and lead the others through faraway lands in their quest to confront the Fiends. Can they pull together and save the Guardians? Or will their personal struggles overwhelm their combined strengths and doom the world?

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I read, and am working on replying, to all the comments y'all leave. All comments are moderated by me, so, if you don't see it automatically that's why. Psst, there is no "Word Verification" on the comments. =)

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